Bedi backs distributor to be a source of comfort for publishers in its 25th year

Davinder Bedi has a mantra for BookSource, the Glasgow-based distributor he has run for 24 years: "profit with perspective". It must be commercially viable, but as an entity owned by Publishing Scotland, BookSource’s primary purpose is to serve the trade organisation’s members.

Bedi explains: “The business has to stand on its own feet, but we have one great big eye on service to publishers. Because we are owned by Publishing Scotland, our goal is to exist rather than provide massive dividends for shareholders. It is good to operate in that way, as I can always say yes rather than no.”

Another mantra is that BookSource is a distributor that happens to be based in Scotland, not a Scottish distributor. Of BookSource’s 94 publisher clients, 40% are from south of the border. Bedi says: “We happen to be based in Glasgow, just as it happens that HarperCollins’ distribution is also in Glasgow. Our market is UK publishers. Obviously, geography provides a large part of what we do and that’s why we have a lot of the Scottish industry in our stable. But in fact, it is often cheaper for me to send a box of books to, say, Birmingham than to Inverness. Why do non-Scottish publishers choose us? Well, I think we have a great, competitive service, but all our publishers assess us along with the rest of the marketplace and I’ll let their choice speak for itself.”

Corona comedown
BookSource has continued to operate during the Covid-19 lockdown, with front-office teams working from home. Bedi jokes at feeling a bit cramped at his house—his wife is Scottish National Party MP Kirsten Oswald, who normally spends four days a week in Westminster, “and she is kind of upsetting my and the kids’ schedules”. There is a vastly reduced warehouse staff: many have been furloughed, as bookshop orders slowed to a trickle. Bedi adds: “We kept on a selected few warehouse staff who were least at risk, after looking at things like who they live with and how they get to work. We have a massive warehouse and very few people at the moment, and all the appropriate social distancing and health and safety measures are in place.”

Bedi adds: “There is still a job to be done. Part of that is dealing with what we shouldn’t ship—like cancelling new releases or back orders that kick in automatically. But orders from online have ramped up significantly. We are linked to clients’ websites, so to a certain extent our market is shifting to consumers buying direct from publishers and, of course, the online retailers.”

The idea for BookSource came about when a distributor which serviced many of what was then known as the Publishers Association of Scotland’s members was struggling financially. Owning a distributor was not embraced by all members: “A lot of them said it was a mad idea,” says Bedi. BookSource took its first order in August 1995, and the mad idea has grown into a business with around £10m in annual revenues. Bedi joined PA Scotland in September 1996, with part of his duties overseeing BookSource, but his role gradually shifted until he took over running the distributor full-time a few years later.

One of the reasons BookSource has flourished, Bedi says, is “a personal touch. People often know who they are going to speak to on the phone. We have clients that, say, latch on to Angela in finance and only speak to her as they have that good relationship. If I was following proper management theory, it would probably be said that that was terrible for the business: too reliant on one person, a redundancy of tasks, and all that. But if that’s what customers like, why stop it?”

The distribution game has changed markedly in the past 20 years, Bedi says, with the “Amazonification of the market—everyone expects things the next day, or now. There are more links in the chain, but publishers and the end user expect that rapid service. I don’t think anyone is griping about it. Anyone who doesn’t live up to market expectations isn’t going to be around for long, and you just have to be innovative and flexible with your people and kit. You are not making more money, but you’re doing more work. It’s all calm on the surface, but you are treading water fast underneath.”

Coronavirus has put paid to what was to have been year-long 25th anniversary celebrations for the company, which were meant to include a big London Book Fair event, an Edinburgh International Book Festival party, and a roadshow to visit as many customers across the UK as possible. Bedi says: “Like the Olympics and the Euros, we’ll put those events off until 2021... I guess we’ll celebrate our 26th anniversary.”

And BookSource will continue to keep the lights on as long as it is safe to do so. Bedi says: “There is a recognition that a lot of these publishers will be on their knees as they are missing out on a hugely important spring selling season. We feel a duty to stay open for the time being; if we weren’t open, publishers’ cashflow would not tick over.”